Not for the first time when dealing with Barry Ferguson, a high-profile football manager has found his job on the line because of the behaviour of the captain of Rangers and Scotland.

On the bench: Scotland and Rangers midfielder Barry Ferguson at HampdenPhoto: PA

By Roddy Forsyth

7:30AM BST 02 Apr 2009

Three years ago it was Paul Le Guen at Ibrox. The Frenchman did not survive.

Now it is George Burley. Whether the Scotland manager can do better than Le Guen remains an open question, although Wednesday night's World Cup qualifying victory over Iceland strengthens Burley's hand for the moment.

Three years ago, Ferguson took umbrage at the methods of Le Guen, the dynamic young coach of Olympique Lyonnaise, who had been head-hunted by the Ibrox owner, Sir David Murray, and lured to Scotland with a brief to revitalise the club.

Within seven months he was gone. Murray was in France at the time, enjoying a particularly toothsome vintage claret – he is a wine connoisseur – when the ambience was shattered by a phone call from a Scottish journalist advising that Le Guen's patience had finally snapped and that he had dropped Ferguson and stripped him of the captaincy. Murray knew the end had come for the manager and promptly returned to Scotland to limit the damage.

With his tenure characterised by indifferent results, Le Guen, had no fallback position. He was gone within days and Ferguson was soon restored to the first team and the captain's armband.

Fast forward to the early hours of last Sunday morning, when the Scotland squad arrived back at their Loch Lomond training base after their 3-0 defeat by the Dutch in the World Cup qualifier in the Amsterdam ArenA.

The squad had been together for a full week and Burley decided it was time to allow the players a little respite. When they reached the team hotel at 4am they were told they could have a couple of beers before going to bed.

At lunchtime, Burley was both astonished and incensed to be told that Ferguson and Allan McGregor, the Rangers goalkeeper, who had won his fourth cap the night before, were still at the bar. To make matters worse, the pair were in full view of guests and visitors using the nearby fitness centre.

Burley sent the two players packing, but they returned half an hour later and apologised to him and the manager swiftly realised that to kick them out would trigger a media feeding frenzy that would disrupt the squad preparations for the visit of Iceland, a game Scotland had to win to stay in contention for a World Cup play-off place.

"It was better to have them inside the tent, than outside the tent," a Scotland insider told Telegraph Sport last night.

Yet, to listen to Ferguson two weeks ago was to get no inkling that there was insurrection in the offing. Reflecting on the stirring – but ultimately fruitless Euro 2008 campaign, which saw the Scots in a fearsome qualifying section alongside Italy, France and Ukraine – Ferguson said: "Everyone was working for each other and I've seen bits of the spirit we had back then under George Burley.

"It's always difficult when a new manager comes in with different ideas but I can detect us getting that spirit back – and that's what you want."

Ferguson's appearance in Amsterdam took his caps total to 45, five short of the total required for admittance to the Scottish Football Association's Hall of Fame – and he wanted to achieve the distinction.

Asked if he thought this campaign would be his last hurrah, the 31-year-old midfield player responded: "I'll sit down and have a chat with the family but probably.

"There are five or six international games left, then we'll decide. That would take me to 2010 when my contract finishes with Rangers. Who knows what I'll be doing – coaching kids maybe – but I don't look too far ahead.

"But as I get older, I want to play as many games as I can for Scotland. I had to listen to all this stuff when I was pulling out through injury a lot in previous years that I didn't want to play for Scotland, but that was a load of nonsense.

"I want to play as long as I can, but after next season I'll sit down with the manager and see what's next."

Burley also put himself on the line for Ferguson as recently as last week, when he uncharacteristically snapped at a reporter who questioned the assumption that the player was an automatic choice. However, while Sunday's marathon bar stint on the banks of Loch Lomond could be put down to stupidity or a crass misjudgment, it is known that some Scotland players – particularly more established figures – have never taken to Burley.

Ferguson has form when it comes to mutiny, as was demonstrated by his successful insurrection against Le Guen, but rebellion against Burley broke out earlier this season among Scotland's Rangers contingent, with Lee McCulloch 'retiring' from international football in August and Kris Boyd stalking out in a huff after being left on the bench for the autumn qualifier against Norway.

On this occasion, McGregor had been preferred to Craig Gordon because the Sunderland man has not been playing first-team football, but the Rangers keeper's performance in Amsterdam had not convinced Burley that he was the man for the job at Hampden last night.

Ferguson, too, was under fire again for what was seen as a lacklustre performance in Amsterdam.

Perhaps they simply anticipated that the demands upon their services would decrease this week, or perhaps they simply felt they could ignore the manager's strictures about squad discipline. Either way, the reverberations have by no means come to an end.

Last night the errant pair found themselves condemned even by their own club's fans. John Macmillan, secretary of the Rangers Supporters Clubs, said: "They have let Scotland down, they have let the club down and they have let the fans down with their behaviour.

"They are two players who should have known better. I don't think George Burley had any alternative but to do what he has done. Frankly, I have no sympathy for either player.

"Ferguson, in particular, is the Scotland captain and should have known better. In fact, anyone from the youngest member of the squad all the way through should know better."